Former Guns ‘n’ Roses guitarist Slash was born in Hampstead on July 23rd,1965 to parents Ola and Anthony Hudson. When Saul was a child the family moved from London to Stoke on Trent before heading off to sunny Los Angeles in America. His mother Ola was a professional costume designer for various musicians, during her time she styled John Lennon, David Bowie, The Pointer Sisters, Ringo Starr and Diana Ross. She also appeared in a couple of magazine adverts such as the one below for Dewar’s – you can see where Slash gets his curly locks from. Sadly Ola passed away in 2009 at the age of 62.

Saul’s dad Anthony was also involved in the music business. The English born artist worked for Geffen records in the 1970s, during his time there he created LP covers for Neil Young and illustrated the 1974 Joni Mitchell album Court and Spark . Anthony still lives in Laurel Canyon, Los Angeles.

When Slash spoke about his mixed background he said “As a musician, I’ve always been amused that I’m both British and black; particularly because so many American musicians seem to aspire to be British while so many British musicians, in the sixties in particular, went to such great pains to be black.”